The Encounter Habit
Today’s newsletter is called “The Encounter Habit.” Here’s the rub: Relationship-building encounters are the most important products you produce, every day. At any moment during a customer interaction, monitor how well things are going, and be alert and ready to improve the encounter. It can be done!
Pay attention! Be alert! At any point in time, you can turn a customer interaction into a relationship-building encounter, and avoid having it devolve into a relationship-eroding transaction.
I’ve just landed at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, from where I will fly to Mauritius later today, landing early tomorrow morning. Continuing my theme from my “Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional” post at the beginning of this 17-day odyssey, I successfully managed not to let United Airlines’ silliness upset my travel peace of mind, even during the O’Hare check-in process that required two lines, one for checking in and one for checking passports. (Could have been the “Not” example in an Industrial Engineering 101 class. )
I know it’s strange, but I really like these transition days in Europe … somewhat serene from too little sleep, ready for a new adventure. Check out my “Warsaw Walking Yoga with Joni Mitchell” video blog from last summer. Regrettably, I don’t have enough time before my next flight to go into Paris for a few hours, so I’ll have to find something interesting in the airport. Hey, I might even have a chance to practice the Encounter Habit.
(Post update 8:30AM Mauritius Time, Wednesday, 11:30PM Chicago time, Tuesday: Just arrived in Mauritius. Beautiful suite at Le Meridien’s resort, overlooking the Indian Ocean on the north shore of the island. After a zillion hours on airplanes I should sleep, but I need to go outside. Finally got to meet my friend, client and host, Kiran Dinaran of Multievents, in person, after months of Skype and email. Looking forward to a great couple of days here.)
Read
the trend nowadays is to offer the kind of service everyone offers. lousy or non-existent ones.
customer “experience” is becoming more and more a process. we’re being processed. order a meal at McD and you’re not greeted with a smile anymore. just a flat face from somebody who’s taking your order (which is quite different from – serving – a customer).
after paying, they just print your receipt and push it to the side, you wait for your meal at the side while they process the next customer in line.
same thing happening at the hypermarkets. just replace the word Meal above with Shopping Items.
perhaps the day will come when companies charge their customers a premium for customer experience.
something like paying extra for express boarding in budget airlines.
you want better experience, sure. just pay more.
rgs
leonghw
leonghw – Here’s a question: do companies have to charge more for a premium customer experience, or are customers more willing to pay for a premium customer experience (especially one that transcends basic customer service and includes relationship-building encounters)?
Thanks for the thoughts … I’m glad I’m in Paris, 7 hours ahead of Chicago, so I can be up to see your comment and Shaun’s appearing at a time I’d normally be asleep!
do companies have to charge more for a premium customer experience and are customers willing to pay?
they don’t have to charge.
but business is about bottom line.
if they can charge you for something, they will.
in fact some already are & we’re already paying for it.
used to be you can withdraw money from the banks at the counters at no charge.
now some banks (HSBC for one) charge you if you do withdrawals at the counters more than 3 times a year.
you can do withdrawals at the ATM for free.
there’s a relationship building opportunity at the counters. but they charge you, because it incurs cost to serve you (1 headcount). while the cost is minimal at the ATM.
furthermore relationship building experience requires setting clear guidelines, training & monitoring.
all of these incurs cost to the business. somebody has to bear it.
unless businesses absolutely have to offer the experience to stay on par with competitors, they will charge you a premium for the experience.
rgs
leonghw
leonghw.wordpress.com
Pleasant greetings from New Zealand.
I am loving your website! I’m hooked. I discovered it through a link from tom peters.
Learning a lot, and love the fact you share so much for free, and generously link to other awesome sites.
I will definitely be buying your books.
Keep up the great work
Shaun – Thank you, thank you. Comments like yours are why I do what I do. Thanks for reminding me, as I am constantly reminded, why I bailed out of the corporate senior executive path.
Steve, hope I’m not being rude, but I would like to inject a thought in regards to leonghw’s comment and your subsequent question:
No, companies DON’T have to charge extra for premium customer service experiences; moreover, there usually should not even BE an either/or option. ALL service should be provided with premium quality. “Sir, would you like to supersize that serving of lousy service?” — that’s more typical these days.
It makes more sense to me to leave mediocre service and products off of your menu and let the competition continue to provide that while you set yourself apart for providing Wow! encounters at the same price. It may SEEM less profitable to do so at first, but the chances are good that when word gets out that you’re able to provide better service and products for a comparable price, your competition will be out of business soon because all their business is migrating to your place.
You just have to be careful that when demand and volume increases you are already prepared to do whatever it takes to maintain that premium quality. This is where SO, SO, SO MANY companies end up making a deadly turn: once they do Wow! things and take all the business, they get overrun and/or complacent and the “premium” element starts to erode. Or they have to make desperate, poorly thought-out investments in order to try. Soon, they are wondering why business is slowing down. “Must be the economy.” Hello? Have you by chance driven by or scoped-out that competitor across town whose business is now increasing rapidly? Uh huh. You just handed THEM the premium advantage on a silver platter. You helped them learn the game and they beat you at it.
An analogy just crossed my mind that a lot of people aren’t even aware of.
Next time you stop to put gas in your car, notice the radical difference in the prices of regular, mid-grade, and premium unleaded fuels at the same pump. Anywhere from 10 to 20 cents a gallon difference between “regular” and “premium.” Pretty substantial. That premium unleaded must be some really special stuff if they charge that much more, huh?
Actually, if you do a little spying or simple question-asking, you’ll discover a little known secret: the gas is all being pumped out of one underground tank! That’s right, it’s all the same gas. The jobber that fills their tanks delivers just one grade of gasoline in that big tanker truck. The only difference is that the pumping system adds an octane-boosting additive as it’s being pumped from the storage tank to the nozzle in your hand.
You are actually paying a premium price for a little something extra. You can actually buy octane booster by the bottle and pour it in the tank yourself, which turns out to be less expensive per tank. That’s the only difference. That one added ingredient makes some people willing to pay even more. It may sound like I’m contradicting my above comment here, but the point is that if you are willing to add that something extra to make YOUR service or products better somehow, there are a lot of people WILLING to pay the extra.
But the added ingredients have to be there. Otherwise, your service/product is just “Regular Unleaded” and you shouldn’t expect folks to pay a premium price.
Great stuff Steve. I will continue to practive makes practice.
I manage a radio operation in the Waikato in New Zealand, 7 radio stations, 30 staff…and we obsess on client service, always trying to take it to the next level. I’m fortunate enough to have incredible clients who think the same way. One of which is a clothing store called Texas Radio.
I missed their VIP night the other night (which is usually a pretty cool night) They called me up the next day telling me I was about to have my very own “VIP day”.
I turned up, they had all the clothes picked out for me to try on, in my size. (I get so frustrated if I’m trying stuff on that’s too small or too big)
Later that day (after jeans were taken up), the owner personally dropped them off to me, with two cold beers. “Hey, you would of had those at the VIP night”, he laughed.
He was real. He was genuine. And I can’t stop telling people about the level of service.
But of course people are already aware, because HE treats EVERYONE like this!
Footnote: I don’t exactly spend a fortune on clothes. My wife has to force me to go clothes shopping, but this company is getting me excited about clothes, by tapping into my love for great client service. What money I do spend, now goes their way.